March 18th, 2010 by Angie
I saw the most amazing tuna steaks on an episode of Alton Brown’s Good Eats quite a while ago. I had been meaning to make the tuna ever since, but never got around to it. I haven’t come across the tuna loin that Alton’s recipe calls for, but I did find some Ahi tuna steaks at Sam’s Club, so I decided to adapt the recipe to them. For this recipe, make sure to get Ahi tuna or sushi grade tuna for the best results. Ahi tuna is also known as yellowfin tuna.
This tuna is so easy to make at home, its ridiculous. I used a marinade of soy sauce and honey to marinate the steaks for an hour before cooking. In Alton’s recipe, he also calls for wasabi powder, but I left out the spicy powder because of our little guy. Make sure to only barely sear the tuna, about a minute on each side, and probably 30 seconds on each edge. This will produce a lightly seared tuna steak that is very rare, and raw inside. You can continue to cook your tuna to the desired temperature, but the more you cook tuna, the more dried out it will become.
Sesame Seared Ahi Tuna Steak
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup Soy Sauce
- 1/4 cup Honey
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds
- 4 Ahi tuna steaks
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
Method
- Stir soy sauce and honey together. Pour over tuna steaks and coat them well. Let them marinate for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat a large skillet. Drizzle with sesame oil. Sear tuna for just about a minute on each side and on the sides. This will produce a very rare steak. You can cook a little longer, but remember that tuna easily dries out the more you cook it.
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Tags: sesame, tuna
Posted in Fish | 4 Comments »
March 17th, 2010 by Angie
This is a quick and easy recipe for carrot ginger coconut soup. It is full of flavor and goes great with potstickers, egg rolls, or wontons. I got the idea for this soup from surfing the web one day. Although, for the life of me, I can’t recall what site it was, even after searching today. I prepared this soup to go along with some pork pot stickers. When I perfect the potstickers, I’ll share that recipe too.
Over the past week, I have transferred my site to a new server too, if you are still having any problems with comments, let me know through the contact button above. You can email me directly through the link. I lost alot of little info in the transfer, like my links in my blogroll. I can’t remember exactly who all was in it, but I am adding to it when I remember who I’ve left out. For me, the server is uploading and showing my changes immediately, instead of hours later. And oddly enough, my hosting price did not go up, it went WAY down. So in the web hosting world, I guess you do not get what you pay for. I have the smallest plan now, which is way bigger than I need. It is only $2.45 a month, when prepaid annually. You can see all their hosting plans here. They are also a green company, running on wind power.
Carrot Ginger Coconut Soup
Ingredients
- 10 – 12 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
- 1 quart vegetable stock, or water
- 2-3 inch section fresh ginger, peeled and grated
- 2 cloves garlic, grated
- 1 cup coconut cream
Method
- Add chopped carrots to a saucepan. Add vegetable stock. Add fresh ginger and garlic. Bring to a boil, and cook until tender. Add more water to keep carrots covered during the cooking process if needed.
- When carrots are very tender, remove from heat. Use a submersible blender or add soup in batches to your blender to puree. Add coconut cream, and heat through.
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Tags: carrots, coconut, ginger
Posted in Soups, Vegetarian | 7 Comments »
March 15th, 2010 by Angie
This is a delicious recipe for a greek style orzo and chicken. I used boneless skinless chicken breasts, but you could easily use boneless skinless thighs or bone in, skin on, breasts or things. I got the idea for this dish on the Rachael Ray Show. I am a loyal watcher of her daytime show. I started watching her on food network when she first started, but now only seem to have time to enjoy her daytime show. I record it on my DVR, and watch it when my son is napping. She is a great inspiration to me, I love that she is a very talented home cook that is not trained as a chef. She is also pretty, funny, and so normal. She actually had to beg to be on The Soup, I thought that was too funny. The Soup is another favorite show of mine, we record it on the DVR too. By watching The Soup, I don’t feel the need to watch any of those silly reality and talk shows, they just compile the best clips (of people being crazy) for us, its great!
This recipe isn’t exactly like Rachel’s. I used roasted red peppers instead of tomatoes. I also used 1 less lemon, and prepared the orzo by absorption instead of boiling like pasta. There were a few other minor variations, but the basic recipe idea is the same. My family loved this chicken and orzo. I thought it might have been to spicy for my little one, but he gobbled it up and begged for more. You can adjust the spice in this recipe by changing the amount of crushed red pepper flake you put on the chicken.
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 cup chopped olives
- 1/4 cup chopped banana peppers
- 1/4 cup chopped jarred roasted red peppers
- 1/2 cup feta cheese
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lb bag orzo
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Method
- Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add garlic. Saute on low. Add orzo and cook over medium heat until orzo is golden brown. Add chicken stock to orzo and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes. Turn off heat and let pasta rest, covered for 5-10 minutes.
- Sprinkle chicken breasts with kosher salt, pepper, dried oregano, and red pepper flake. Preheat a large skillet. Drizzle with olive oil. Place chicken in pan and place lemon slices on top of chicken breasts. Brown chicken, being careful to place lemon back on top of the breasts after flipping them.
- Remove chicken when done. Saute chopped onions and green peppers in the same skillet. Add chopped olives, roasted red peppers and banana peppers. Add orzo and mix well. Add to a serving platter and add feta cheese. Mix well. Serve chicken on top of orzo.
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Tags: Chicken, olives, orzo
Posted in Chicken | 12 Comments »
March 11th, 2010 by Angie
Delicious chicken parmesan, this is one of our go to easy comfort food dinners. I make this dish in the same basic method that I use for my eggplant parmesan. I fry the chicken, and then add the sauce. This was actually the first time, after much begging, that I found San Marzano tomatoes in my Publix. I was so excited, they finally listened. We love all types of Italian food at our home. Not only is Italian the most popular ethnic cuisine in the U.S., southerners have quite a love affair with all things Itlaian. My husband’s grandmother was also Sicilian, so I try to honor our only known heritage with some Italian inspired dishes at least once a week. Its still on my list to learn Sicilian dishes, there is so much to learn!
I also want to talk today again about Adopt-a-blogger. A few posts back, I shared with you guys my adopter’s culinary background, which was quite impressive. On our introduction to each other, we had to describe our culinary backgrounds. Of course mine is pretty much non-existent, but I did pull something outs my, well you know. You can read it here at Jackie’s site.
Chicken Parmesan Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 egg
- 1 cup Italian style bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, pantry type
- 1 teaspoon Italian dried herbs (oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, and sage)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- vegetable oil for frying
Sauce
- 1/4 sweet onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 28 oz can San Marzano or Italian tomatoes with basil flavor, I like Cento
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, and sage)
- 1 small can tomato paste
- kosher salt
- olive oil
Pasta, cooked according to package directions
Method
- Preheat saucepan for sauce. Drizzle with olive oil. Add onions and garlic, saute until translucent. Add kosher salt. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, and herbs. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
- Preheat about 1 inch deep of vegetable oil in a large skillet for frying the chicken to 350 degrees, or on medium heat. Whisk eggs and dip chicken in eggs. Add breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, dried herbs, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Dredge chicken in bred crumb mixture. Fry chicken until it is browned.
- While chicken is frying and sauce is simmering, prepare pasta according to package directions. Drain pasta, and add half of the sauce to the pasta.
- Serve chicken topped over pasta, topped with more sauce. Add more parmesan or Italian blend cheese if desired.
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Tags: Chicken, parmesan
Posted in Chicken, Italian | 14 Comments »
March 9th, 2010 by Angie
I know, I know, you either love the oyster, or can’t stand it. So if you have an appreciation, keep reading, if not, that’s fine too. I have loved oysters ever since I can remember. My parents use to take me to a local oyster restaurant and we would sit at the bar watching the big burly men shuck oysters at lightening fast speeds. As a little kid, I would finish off 2 dozen by myself. I loved the salty sea flavor. I have always been much more of a salty than a sweet person. Most of the time though, we bought oysters to eat at home. We ate them very often in the colder months and even had an oyster shell driveway, pretty dangerous for an accident prone little girl. I can’t remember a summer before my 12 or 13th birthday that I didn’t have scab knees all of short season.
Even though it isn’t actually necessary anymore, we still only eat oysters in the colder months. I have been in the mood for oysters for a while now. We hardly ever eat them out, because we can’t stop at just a dozen. If we fed our craving, we would go broke, so we purchase them by the half bushel at home. We eat the majority of them raw. There are many other ways to make oysters, a good stew is one of my favorites that I will share another time. I love to enjoy the oyster as close to its raw state the best. That is the beauty of this fried oyster. They are crispy on the outside and barely cooked inside, a trick I learned from my dad.I serve them with my favorite crinkle cut fries and spicy cocktail sauce.
Ingredients
- Shucked Oysters, 3-4 dozen
- 1/ cup flour
- 1/2 cup cornmeal
- 1 teaspoon old bay, or any other cajun or seafood seasoning
- vegetable oil for frying
Method
- Preheat cooking oil to medium high. Combine flour, cornmeal, and seasoning in a large bowl. Toss oysters in batches, about 12 at a time, to coat well.
- Fry oysters in hot oil just until golden brown.
Tip: The sound of the frying oyster will change when it is done, when the sound changes, evacuate quickly. This should take less than a minute.
Cocktail Sauce
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon horseradish
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon Tabasco, or more to taste
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
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Tags: oysters
Posted in Seafood | 13 Comments »
